EDITOR’S LETTER

Full disclosure: it hasn’t been an easy week. Nothing serious, no drop-everything dramas, just layers of micro-annoyances conspiring to create a perfect storm of WTFness. It goes like that sometimes: some weeks are low-level extra. Mercury retrograde stirring the pot for giggles, apparently. Thankfully, there has been a beacon of joy staring at me over the past seven days: reggae artist Koffee.

I might not keep the tidiest workspace at ES HQ but even now, as I write this, my keyboard is surrounded by images of Koffee. Quite simply, they make me happy. The 21-year-old pocket-sized artist is a force of nature on a mission to ‘make magic happen’. You can see that uplifting spirit in all Ekua King’s images on these pages. In Olive Pometsey’s accompanying interview, Koffee talks about reggae’s calming effect on her; maybe that’s what I’m picking up via a strange form of osmosis. I hope you find her infectious, too.

On Sunday, and with things finally feeling less topsy-turvy, I sat down with my wife to enjoy Netflix’s latest must-watch, The Tinder Swindler. The story of an Israeli fraudster conning a succession of Nordic women into bankrolling his high-flying and utterly tasteless lifestyle (what is it about sparklers in magnum bottles?) is a timely if anti-romance tale in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. In her column this week, Susie Lau comes clean about her own dating misdemeanors. Admittedly not as bad as The Tinder Swindler’s Simon Leviev, Susie can’t stop tuning in to couples at nearby tables when she should be focusing on the date sitting in front of her — just imagine the meltdown she’d have in the First Dates restaurant. Which is a clumsy segue into telling you we have everyone’s favourite maître-d’/cupid, Fred Sirieix, in My London.

Whatever you’re doing this Valentine’s Day — eavesdropping on awkward first encounters or swiping right on Tinder — remember: love is the message. And don’t give anyone your Amex details until at least date three.